to your point that the main quest can be complete in 30-40 hours, i can't see why anyone would want to do that. in order to do that you'd have to ignore the majority of other goings on in the game.

in about 30 hours i've yet to scratch the surface, and thanks to contracting the vampire disease, am way to engrossed by the side quests and the scenery to even touch the main quests.

i've never been one to replay a game that i finished, but i'm already looking forward to changing characters and playing the game from a different perspective...which is an dark elf assassin.

Even I've been tempted to buy a 360 for this game. Notably, that would be a much cheaper way to play it than attempting to upgrade my computer. In fact, my existing computer probably can't be upgraded enough to run Oblivion very well, if at all. That would mean spending a good chunk of change to build a new system from the ground up.

The 360 is tremendously overpriced compared to other consoles on the market right now, but it's a lot cheaper than a new computer, even if I build the whole system myself.

So I'm trying to keep myself occupied with Morrowind and other things, until some prices go down somewhere.

I agree. Like I said, it would be such a waste of money to do that. Sadly, there are people who will only work on the main quest. The point was that you still get a pretty standard RPG if you only do the main quest. If you do everything else though, well, that is over 200 hours.

I am a vampire now too. I got it less than 10 hours into the game. I have even completed the quest to cure it, though I do not think I will be drinking the potion any time soon.

Morrowind was the same way, I know I will play through it again. I am an Imperial Night at the moment, but will be trying either a pure Mage or Battle Mage next, and likely an Argonian.

the vampire cure quest is giving me fits...i cannot find the soul gems that are supposed to be in certain dungeons...there are secret doors that are supposed to be in specific areas of these dungeons, but i cannot for the life of me find them...and i don't want to just go and buy them all...that seems too easy.

and victor, i disagree that the 360 is overpriced...if you use it as much as you should, the 360 is a bargain. it's not how much you spend, but the return on your investment that matters...between this game, ghost recon and condemned you'll get your money's worth from this console.

Yes indeed. I originally thought that $400 was overpriced. But not after seeing the killer app: Xbox Live Arcade. And no, I am not kidding. Condemned, GRAW, and Oblivion are all pretty good reasons too, of course.

Sal - there are soul gems at the Arcane University first floor. Three of them for your picking. I did find some in dungeons but I ended up buying them. There is a money glitch (that will get patched) once you complete the quest. You get 1000 gp for completing the quests, which does not account for the cost of five soul gems.

But you can sell the cure potion for a pretty penny ;)

XBox Live isn't a killer app for people like me who still use dialup to access the Intertron from home. If I buy this hefty-priced box any time soon, it'll be for Oblivion and not much else.

Big problem with Oblivion is that the xbox360's hard drive can get scrambled and pretty much doom the box we have all come to love so much... sad sad day---

Is Cyrodill really only 16 square miles? I seem to recall reading the game world in Daggerfall was the size of Great Britain. Granted, much of that game world was computer-generated, while everything for Morrowind and Oblivion had to be built by hand. Still, it seems they'd want to make the game world bigger than 16 square miles, and judging by my experiences there so far, Morrowind has a lot more than 8 square miles to explore.

I thought I said more than 16 square miles? That figure does not include all the Oblivion Gates, caves, ruins, etc. That is just the overworld. So yes, it is bigger than 16 square miles. And it is the biggest TES game yet.

Also everything in Oblivion was not built by hand. The forests are all randomly generated. The land mass is always the same size of course, but not the forests.

Lenard - I have yet to hear of any serious hard drive failure because of this game. There is a way to delete the cache (hold A while starting the system) but beyond that there have been no problems reported that are any different from playing any other 360 game.

Well, "over 16 square miles" would indicate somewhere between 16 and 17 square miles, by my reading, and usually closer to 16. If it were more than 16-1/2, the usual boast would be "almost 17 square miles!"

But perhaps I've been reading too much marketing copy.

just wanted to make a quick comment concerning the "randomly generated" forests, since this was something that I was especially interested in. Actually, the forests were not randomly generated. Bethesda worked with a team of environmental scientists to develop algorithms for forest growth, and sort of "grew" the forests based on some parameters and the topology of the land. Although not done by hand, it certainly wasn't random. Some might say it's even better than by hand.

Sounds extremely cool, Anon. Can you provide any links to more information about their algorithms for generating forest environments?

Well, by 'random' I meant 'not modeled by hand.' and by definition, I still call that random. Because if you play the game again (start a new game) then the forests will be generated, or grown, differently. I call that random, but that is just me.

There is no way the forests could have been hand planted. They are just too big. I know they licensed the software, but do not know from who either.

Victor - heh, marketing... anyways. I would say the amount of Oblivion Gates, caves, ruins, and all other stuff that is not part of the overworld has got to constitute another square mile or more. As for the exact number, I have no idea. I don't even think Bethesda has even taken the time to calculate it. I don't think anyone really cares that much.

When I first started playing the game, I did not think it was bigger than Morrowind, but now that I am into the game pretty far, it sure is a lot bigger, with a lot more to explore outside of just walking around the overworld.

I believe High Rock and Hammerfell in Daggerfall look to be the size of Morrowind, but didn't come close. But then it has been a long time since I played that game.

Also, I was referring to the Xbox Live Arcade as being the killer app, not Live itself. Although Live is done very well, it is nothing without the games. Of course you still need broadband to download the XBLA games ;)

You should also consider games like Condemned, GRAW, Dead or Alive 4, even Kameo as reasons other than just Oblivion for the purchase of a 360. But I don't blame ya. I bought it for Oblivion, it just happened to have a bunch of other games on it that I wanted too.

According to the Elder Scrolls web site, the game world in Daggerfall is about the size of Great Britain. That's over 50,000 (yes, fifty thousand) square miles. Presumably, the playable area in Arena is even larger, because it "encompassed the entire world of Tamriel." In both of those cases, most of it is computer generated, of course.

Obviously, Morrowind and Oblivion are nowhere near that size. But I definitely got the impression they'd both be much bigger than a mere 16 or so square miles, so I wondered where that figure came from, and why it's showing up in so many online reviews. A little more poking around on the Elder Scrolls site reveals another interesting little factoid: "Morrowind is about 0.0001% the landmass of Daggerfall."

By my calculations, that makes the Morrowind game world a little over 5 square miles. So apparently the figure you've all been quoting is accurate, and the fact Morrowind feels so much bigger to me as I'm exploring its world is simply a testament to how richly it was designed.

How much do the grand soul gems cost? Ive spent to much time looking, I wanna go out and buy them.

Ken - I don't know that Lenard is totally right. I hope not, but Oblivion most definitely scrambles the order of my saved games. It's driving me crazy. The people at Bethesda don't have a solution, either.

The vampire cure quest has screwed up the whole game for me now. I got all the ingredients, returned the blood-staind dagger and the Henthral vampire ashes that the old witch, BUT what she doesn't mention in the list of topics when I speak with her is the 2 blades of bloodgrass. This is a defect/glitch..everytime I talk to her now the only options are 'Cure for the Vampire Disease' and 'Rumors'. There's nothing I can do, I keep my saves down to live 3 at a minumum and I cannot go back and try to start the cure quest thing over again. This makes me wanna stop playing now cos it sucks being a vampire.

I disagree. I have played the entire game a vamp.

The same has happened to me Chad and I must say it is a very annoying glitch as I dont want to be a vampire. Apart from that the game has been great so far. If anyone knows of any other way to cure myself please share but I doubt there will be.

A bit of a correction is needed to one of my earlier statements. For some reason I misremembered the land area of Great Britain. In reality it's over 80,000 square miles. This means my calculation for the area of the game world in Morrowind should have come out to just over 8 square miles, making Cyrodiil roughly twice its size, just as Ken stated in the main article.

I had a similarly frustrating experience with the vampire cure. If you don't have a previous save then you either play as a vampire or restart. If you restart, make sure, when you get the disease again (and you will), that you give the witch all her ingredients in the order she requested them. I beat the vampire and informed her of my accomplishment before giving her the bloodgrass, garlic, nightshade, etc. and when it was time to collect my potion she never came out of the cellar. And, evidently, unlike the PC game, you can't get down into the cellar on the Xbox. Thank the Nine I had a bunch of previous saves.

If you want more detailed information on everything Oblivion, go to GameFaqs.

I am not of the mind that being a vampire sucks. But since it is well known now how easy it is to contract, just have a cure disease potion on you at all times.

And so now they have pull yet another Take 2 game because of yet another (after market) mod. How stupid.

i got down into her basement in the 360 version of the game...also, if you restart the game make sure you do whatever you can to get cure disease potions before going into dungeons...you can keep yourself from getting vampirism if you take a cure disease potion as soon as you get bitten.

i didn't have a problem there, but when i went back to the castle i had to follow the dude around until he was going back up the stairs before he would ask me about the cure.

also this is where the gold glitch occurs....

I have been very frustrated with the quest. I have all ingridients an stuff, but I can't seem to find an argonian at night. Can anyone help? I can't wait because I will die, and the sun will kill me!!!

You can find an argonian at the deadrick shrines, and in mages halls. Just stab them, and then yield right away. Thats it!

Back on the topic of game mods, there's one coming out that I'd really like to get. In fact it's helping me resist the temptation to buy a 360, and instead wait until I can afford a computer beefy enough to play the PC version of Oblivion.

Of course the nature of this particular mod will only go to show just how nerdy I am: it does nothing more than update the covers on all the books in the game.

Now that's what I call cool.

Oh wow, that is totally worth buying a PC for!

Heh heh. Do I detect a tiny hint of sarcasm? Well, at least I still have a month or two to save up for the liquid-cooled super-computer required to run such mods, which probably transform Oblivion into an even bigger hog of RAM and processing power than it already is straight out of the box.

This game is absolutely fantastic. Addressing the vampire issuse, I have the same problem. Fortunately, I don't mind being a vampire. I gave the woman the ashes and the dagger, but she won't take any of the other ingredients and I don't even know which ones I'm supposed to give her. Oh well, still a great game and being a vampire certainly has its perks. If you don't want to die in the sun, just keep feeding! You don't have to reset the game, just feed on sleeping people and the sun won't harm you.

You could also buy the Vile Lair, which has more perks than getting rid of vampirism. As a matter of fact, it is divine if you are a vamp. It is also the cheapest of the episodic content, at 150 MP.

the games good but im also a vamp and i cant find soul gems

This is my second oblivion character, and unlike the first, I decided to finish the main quests. I beat the game, completed the fighters guild, assasins guild, mages guild, and im waaaaaay far in the thieves guild.But yeah im really bummed on the whole vampire quest issue myself. I'm having the same problems with the two bundles of bloodgrass. I read a post from a guy that said that the bloodgrass has to be picked by you and not bought from a store, I tried that but it doesnt work. I really dont want to be a vamp anymore and it sucks cause im far in the game and i guess im going to have to restart.

Maj just buy Enter the Vile Lair download rather than restarting.

Enter the Vile Lair? but i guess thats just for the PC version, right?

Nope. Vile Lair is 150 Microsoft Points on XBLM. Please refer to Comment #31.

This has to do with the VAMPIRE CURE on the 360. I've done everything I need got the two cures cured myself. The problem is I can't get the other cure to the count. He's in a secret room and the lizard woman leaves me hanging. This has put my main quest on hold as well. It's the last city I need troops from. I know I'm not the only one that has this problem. Thanks

Why would anybody want to cure it...? VAMPIRES ARE THE COOLEST!!!!!

Om Having The Problem With The Witch Not Taking My Bloodgrass For The Vamp Cure. . You Mean I Have To Start The Hole Game Over And Give Her The Ingredients In Order?

Everyone seems to be having problems giving the witch the ingredients. I did it the first time, and it worked fine for me.

You could always buy the cheap Marketplace download that will cure you. That or just play the entire game as a Vamp, as it gives you many great attributes.

ok not trying to get off topic but does any1 kno how many oblivion gates there are in total???

oo and if you get the vampires disease you can simply cure by praying at the alter at any city, Chorrals' chapple is meant to cure stuff like this, unless you get the vamp disease from the dark brother hood quest. then you need to do the quest. oo and if you do get the disease and you DO want to be a vamp wait 3 days then sleep.

people, the witch dont accept bloodgrass if you have completed the main quest line because it is tainted or somet... just thought i'd held you all!!!

my game keeps freezing so i bought a new bc i figured it was scratched, but now its still freezing, whats wrong???? i downloaded knights of the nine and it started freezing a little after that??what do i do

Tim: call Xbox support.

where is that number?? and do u have any ideas what to do?

1-800-4MY-XBOX.

Have you killed the cache in Oblivion? I assume you have.

Call them and they will walk you through steps to try and solve the problem.

I want oblivion sooo badly

SCREW NOT BE A VAMPIRE
TRAVEL AT NIGHT BABY THATS THE ONLY WAY TO GO! WOO!!!
FORGET THE CURE
sry im a bit hyper

Im annoyed cuz i did the main quest at level 2, and im a vamp and it's getting annoying (plus i want to do the gold glitch), and the witch wont accept my bloodgrass so i might make a new character and just have vamp as a main 1 ¬_¬

Matt - You feeding on people before you go talk to a NPC? They dont like it when you are a level 4 Vampire, if you feed on a sleeping person, they dont even notice you are a walker of the night.

I Keep trying that (A) Button thing, and it doesnt seem to be working for me. Its not running very slow, its just when i go to save that slows down, so i want to clear it before it gets worse, i know thats only the tip of the iceberg.

ya about the vampire bloodgrass thing i read somewhere that you can just connect to xbox live and download something that bethesda added that fixes it

but im having the same problem and i havent bought xbox live yet so i need to buy it quick

Game patches do not require a Gold account. Do you have broadband? Just get a Silver account. You get a free one month trial of Gold on a new account anyways.